The Energy Balance Phenotpying Core provides services to the members of the NYORC and to othereligible investigators. These services include consultation, assessment of energy intake, energyexpenditure, and body composition. The Core is actively engaged in phenotyping mouse and rat models ofobesity and is in a unique position to provide the stated services. The development of obesity in animalmodels is dependent on hyperphagia; examples are leptin and leptin receptor deficient rodents. Thehyperphagia is dependent on influences from the hypothalamus, as targeted ablation of neuropeptideexpression partially corrects this defect in ingestive behavior. Two of the NYORC Cores, Energy BalancePhenotyping and the Molecular Biology/Molecular Genetics Core, have done a series of ontogenetic studiesto correlate the onset of hyperphagia with overexpression of a hypothalamic neuropeptide, NPY. TheMolecular Biology/Molecular Genetics Core provided the breeders and the genotyping assays to determinegene dosage for leptin receptor mutation which the Energy Balance Phenotyping Core performed measuresof caloric intake. These studies provided a temporal relationship between over-expression of an orexigenicpeptide and hyperphagia, consistent with the hypothesis that increased activity of NPY neurons is partlyresponsible for the obesity/diabetes syndrome of leptin and leptin receptor deficiency. This type ofcollaboration between investigators in the Molecular Biology/Molecular Genetics core and the EnergyBalance Phenotyping core are expected to continue and expand over the next 5 years of investigation. Thecollective experience of the Core's staff provides a broad range of expertise in ingestive behavior, metabolicphysiology and body composition.
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